When a player joins a new team, it’s not odd for stories to come out about issues said player had with their old team. With Dwight Howard now on the Atlanta Hawks, it wouldn’t be surprising if this was the first of many stories to come out about Howard’s troublesome time with the Houston Rockets.
Last season, Howard averaged a double-double in 71 games with the Rockets. The 30-year-old averaged 13.7 points and 11.8 rebounds in an average of 32.1 minutes per game. But despite averaging a double-double, Rockets’ management pushed interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff to play Clint Capela over Howard according to ESPN.
For reference, Capela, 22, averaged 7 points and 6 rebounds in an average of 19.1 minutes over 77 games. In short, Howard was much better than Capela.
General Manager Daryl Morey and owner Leslie Alexander were the two most prominent front office figures that pushed Bickerstaff to reduce Howard’s playing time, although Bickerstaff didn’t comply. ESPN reported that while Alexander and Bickerstaff never met about the issue, Alexander was on Morey’s side when talks came up about Capela playing over Howard.
But management wasn’t alone in wanting to increase Capela’s minutes while decreasing Howard’s. James Hard also played a big role in influencing management to decrease Howard’s minutes.
“There were times I was disinterested because of situations that happened behind the scenes that really hurt me,” Howard said in a May interview with ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan. “It left me thinking, ‘This is not what I signed up for.'”
Asked to elaborate, Howard added: “I felt like my role was being reduced. I went to Daryl and said, ‘I want to be more involved.’ Daryl said, ‘No, we don’t want you to be.’ My response was, ‘Why not? Why am I here?’ It was shocking to me that it came from him instead of our coach.”
Morey and Howard refused to comment on the revelations regarding Howard’s playing time. Bickerstaff, meanwhile, wasn’t allowed to comment, as he’s now the associate head coach for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Another twist in the story is Howard learned of this issue before the trade deadline last summer. Since he knew management wanted him to play less, both parties were interested in him being traded. The trade never occurred, and the rest of the season kept getting worse for the two parties. Houston lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs, 4-1.
While the desire to increase Capela’s time and decrease Howard’s didn’t make sense based on statistics, it did make sense for other reasons. For one, management wanted to improve Capela’s skills since he’s so young at 22 and Howard is 30. Additionally, the Rockets knew Howard would most likely leave during free agency, making Capela the team’s new center.
Howard eventually did leave the Rockets and signed a three-year, $70.5 million contract with the Atlanta Hawks.
[ESPN]
